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Letters to the EditorsAirport's reliever function is vital
© St. Petersburg Times, Re: Airport's future placed in spotlight, Oct. 1. In an era when small airports are disappearing at a rate of one a month, you have the opportunity to be revolutionaries -- to enhance a publicly owned, public-use airport that can and will support itself along with many other business enterprises. Make historic Albert Whitted Airport a true gateway to St. Petersburg. The VFR flight ban will eventually be lifted and Albert Whitted will again be alive with activity; activity that is not just "hobbyist and sports flying." I personally flew more than 3,000 hours from your fine airport, providing traffic reports to a half dozen area radio and TV stations. During those four years, there were millions of dollars in revenue generated for the community by that activity. Most people do not understand the effect that reliever airport closures have on the entire air transportation system. If you close an airport with 200 aircraft, those planes must go somewhere. Many will move to the larger international ports such as Tampa and St. Petersburg-Clearwater. Each of these facilities has a finite number of "slots" allocated by the FAA. Overburden these facilities with too many light aircraft operations and your next airline flight could be delayed or canceled. It's that simple and that connected. As far as pilots being treated as a select few: they are no more so than golfers, fishermen or pleasure boaters. The exception being that a pilot can get your ailing granddaughter to a far away treatment facility quickly, get you to that must-make business meeting across the state or find you bobbing in the ocean or lost in the woods. All of these activities require a local safe airport. Contrary to popular belief, all these services are not performed by some government agency. In fact, volunteer pilots provide more of these type services than the Coast Guard and all law enforcement combined. Think about all the consequences before you consider the value of any small airport.
Buzzards beware: Airport's alive, wellRe: Airport's future placed in spotlight, Oct. 1. Throughout out the past decades, developers have drooled over the real estate occupied by small regional airports. The recent restrictions placed over Albert Whitted and all other airports have the vultures circling. Bryan Gilmer's article says that "the Sept. 11 attacks have sharpened the city's debate about the future of Albert Whitted Airport and could soon force a decision on the facility's viability." If these events have any impact on the consideration of the airport's viability, it should only be positive. The restrictions imposed will be temporary. For Ronald Barton, economic development director, to say that "the future is unsure for (small plane) aviation" is a sign of his ignorance, or perhaps his own self interest. The value of general aviation or "hobbyist pilots" as the critics call it, can not be calculated. Besides the economic benefit of corporate flights, flight training and recreational flying, an airport's greatest social benefit is emergency medical and disaster relief services. Medivac airplanes and helicopters, usually based and/or serviced at the local airport, are the vital link in airlifting the injured from accidents or flying the sick to specialized treatment in distant cities. Whitted Airport's proximity to Bayfront Hospital cannot be ignored. Small regional airports are most appreciated during community emergencies such as floods and major fires. Locally, hundreds of aircraft were called in from as far away as Canada to help control the worst brush fires in Florida history. Many lives and much property were saved. If economic viability is the major issue, then now is not the time to consider it. What business is not suffering right now? To reap benefit or personal gain from these events is disgraceful. To use a temporary economic downturn as an excuse to convert public lands to condos only confirms the pusillanimous nature of developers and public officials. The most important thing for us now is to get back to living, to traveling, shopping and to all the things we did on Sept. 10. If we allow the events of Sept. 11 to change our lives, then we have let the enemy win. Sorry Mr. Barton, Albert Whitted is not carrion yet.
Transit surveillance infringes on libertiesRe: Electronic eyes watching bus passengers, Sept. 27. Thanks for your feature on PSTA's voyeur buses where the most private conversations of transit passengers are being photographed and recorded by the prying eyes of the troubled agency. At a time when the public is expressing outrage over red light cameras photographing license plates and Ybor City cameras photographing the public to compare them with criminal profiles, leave it to Pinellas politicians to inflict such an obvious civil liberties violation on county bus riders. The American Civil Liberties Union is correct in believing passengers are unaware of the covert surveillance. Not only do the cameras not appear to be cameras but printed material on PSTA buses consists exclusively of outdated notices and agency advertising and is universally ignored by riders as are the camera notices. Why does Pinellas County do all it can to make sure people do not ride the buses?
Bus ads obstruct riders' view of outsideOnce more I had the misfortune to ride on the Number 38 bus -- the one with the wraparound advertisements. I had been told these buses would not be used on 38th Avenue N. Now I have been told that St. Petersburg General Hospital has a contract with the PSTA and insists on the use of the buses on 38th Avenue. It would be instructive for officials of St. Petersburg General Hospital to take a ride on this bus and try to see the bus stop they were trying to find. The windows are completely obscured now and the rider has no way of seeing his stop. These buses are no longer just unpleasant -- they are hazardous! Please answer one question for me: Why must the ads be plastered over the windows? Eye-catching, yes. Dangerous? You bet! Isn't it ironic that a hospital's advertisements should put so many riders at risk?
Our local firefighters deserve kudos, tooOn Oct. 1, I was driving down 66th Street N at Fifth Avenue and noticed a lady stopped in the right hand lane, standing directly behind her car. I did not have my cell phone, so we pulled into the fire station and found all the firefighters eating lunch. I told them what I had seen and they all jumped up and ran out the door to assist the lady. New York City does not have all the hard working, caring firefighters. I salute our St. Petersburg firefighters.
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